During the Winter Olympics, hockey and other sports typical of the season gain attention even in a country without snow. But, even before the competition, these rare sporting practices in Brazil were already gaining attention through books.
The subgenre of novels focused on hockey athletes is large mainly in Canada and the United States, where the sport is more popular, but it was once again talked about around the world after the release of “Burning Rivalry” – a Canadian book adapted into the series of the same name.
In the story, two athletes live a romance with forbidden tones due to their antagonism on the rink and because it is a relationship between men, still rare in the hockey universe. Even before it was published in Brazil, Globo Livros had already increased the book’s circulation fivefold.
“The author of the book, Rachel Reid, was very happy in building this relationship of rivalry and desire that over the years leads towards a forbidden love, but which really wants to be lived”, says Paula Drummond, editor of Alt, Globo Livros’ imprint. “They’re fun characters and it’s really easy to root for them.”
But “Burning Rivalry” is not a precursor to the subgenre of hockey novels in Brazil. This title can be attributed to Canadian writer Elle Kennedy. 10 years ago, the Paralela label, from Companhia das Letras, began publishing its series “Amores Improbáveis”, about a group of friends who play on the college hockey team.
Since then, the author has published “Briar U” and “Campus Diaries”, spin off series within the same universe, the “Him and Us” duology. Together, they have sold more than 600,000 copies. However, “Amores Improbáveis” continues to be his biggest success, about to become a series on Prime Vídeo and to be re-released in a special edition by Paralela.
“Elle Kennedy is one of the best-selling authors on Paralela. We believe that this is not exclusively due to the fact that she writes about hockey, but rather to her ability to connect with her audience through her stories”, says editor Renata Moritz.
Kennedy is the inspiration for Babi A. Sette, author of “Spatilhas de Gelo”, published by Record’s Verus label. She is one of the only Brazilians with a traditionally published book of its kind. “It’s very pleasurable how writing a novel allows us to dive into and discover a new universe. I was concerned about being faithful and as realistic as possible in the representation of hockey”, says the writer.
As the publisher of Globo Livros explains, where the series “Off the Ice”, by Canadian Bal Khabra, is also published, “sports novels are popular because they have a clear narrative thread (such as the ecstasy of the end of the championship) and many possibilities for exploring rivalry dynamics and supporting dreams”. But that’s not the only attraction of these stories.
In hockey romances, the archetype of the good guy merges with that of the athlete, strong, masculine and conventionally attractive. It is an aggressive sport, in which punches and fights are allowed inside the rink, and players display bodies shaped by high performance. Still, in addition to valuing the physical, these characters also find space for vulnerability and the expression of feelings (even if these feelings are imagined by female authors).
With the exception of American writer Lynn Painter, who sets her recently released “Skating in Love” in high school, these novels focus on sexual relationships between their protagonists. Erotic excerpts make up a large part of the books.
The success of these narratives is also driven by social media, as explained by Marina Ginefra, acquisitions editor at Intrínseca, which publishes Lynn Painter, by sharing videos of real athletes and associating them with characters from books, a practice called “face claiming”.
But in 2023, success beyond the pages proved problematic. What began as encouragement from readers became persecution and harassment of real athletes. One of the most high-profile cases was that of Alex Wennberg, player for the American team Seattle Kraken, who became a phenomenon on TikTok after being associated with characters from novels and sexual jokes involving the sport (such as the association of “puck”, the name of the hockey puck, with the English term for having sex).
If at first the athlete and other players interacted with fans, the situation escalated when Wennberg’s wife reported his objectification, also becoming the target of attacks. By taking a stance against sexualization, the player divided opinions on the networks. The episode exposed how the logic of the “face claim” can go beyond the territory of fiction.
